Michael*

@gotportugal @peroxideblonde Netflix have just confirmed via this new teaser that we’ve only got four months to wait.

Yeah, most of the visual style of GitS '95 feels like it's been superceded now by so many other things, although there's a lot that could have been updated to the modern age while still retaining the original flavour. Some of the underlying themes of technological singularity, which the original sort of dances around a bit, still feel quite exotic today. Instead, it sounds like they've focussed on a rather cliched revenge plot and skipped the AI issue altogether.

I suppose every now and then, a big budget movie anchored by a famous actor will fail catastrophically. The right lead in the right franchise is golden, but it's hard to say for certain that anybody is a dependable box office draw any more. In this case, I'd imagine they'll still be okay to turn a profit, since two of its largest markets have yet to open. Unfortunately, the casting of Johansson highlighted the filmmakers' disregard for the source material at a very early point. It was as if they hung a sign above the film saying "we don’t really get why people like this thing”, and that seemed to echo through all the decisions they made afterwards. Of course the worst part is that at ground level there were probably people who were incredibly passionate about making a GitS movie, and fought really hard to get it off the ground.

Eva Green [5] Margot Robbie [9]

The PS1 generation was quite notorious for that. Probably the biggest leap in recent years is one that hasn't changed the nature of gameplay as such, but affects the way you interact with your surroundings, which in turn makes the games feel more alive and dynamic. I'd love to see a Ghost in the Shell game that takes inspiration from something like Gravity Rush.

The debate surrounding Scarjo was the clearest manifestation of the negative buzz, but I think a lot of that was borne out of frustration at a perceived unwillingness from the studio to fully understand the appeal of the source material. Whitewashing is the most egregious by-product of that problem, but it's often a sign that there are going to be other problems too. That being said, it's entirely possible that the critics were primed and ready to kick it apart regardless. The knives were seemingly out for Iron Fist recently for similar reasons, although the circumstances were slightly different of course.

@Cult Icon Just stumbled upon this walkthrough for a Ghost in the Shell video game that I had no idea existed, was wondering if you'd heard of it. It must have been released while I was in video game retirement. Looks a fairly solid and fast-paced action game, though undoubtedly a product of its time.

I do find that’s usually the problem, perhaps coupled with the lack of interactivity and the shorter time a movie has to tell a story. Much, much shorter in some cases, when comparing to the length of certain in-game stories. In the case of this particular property, my expectations are a little higher. I don’t think it's too much of a stretch to say that they could just adapt the plot of the game, which (in the nicest possible way) is reasonably linear. The island it was set on was almost a character in itself.

They've nailed the look of the recent games, that's for sure. Here’s hoping they can do something interesting with the story. If I'm honest, it still surprises me when video game movies turn out so badly, especially when they're based on games that are genuinely immersive. Perhaps this can be the one to break the cycle.

I suppose we'll have to see what tomorrow against Watford brings. Overall, I feel for Short a bit, because all he'll have really gathered from a fairly lengthy spell as our owner is that throwing tons of money around and sacking managers every ten months doesn't yield significant progress. Even now, I get the impression that his heart is still more or less in the right place, but there must come a point where it all starts to feel rather futile. On a slightly different note Fred, I genuinely can't decide if it's Russell Crowe or Eddie Vedder in your avatar.

The fact that it's become such an amorphous concept is half the problem though, isn't it? People now throw around the term 'political correctness' every bit as flippantly as others use terms like 'racism' and 'sexism' and, in some cases, promote and condone real bigotry while they're at it.

@Kells. With regard to copying and pasting coloured text (posting here so as not to disrupt Pretty's contest update). I have this problem now and again too, it usually just means that there are hidden elements of code attached to what you're copying and pasting. If you click 'source' (just to the right of your small avatar image when you post) and then paste your text, it should automatically delete the bits you don't want.

Eva Green [9] Alexandra Daddario [7]

I'm going to start calling her 'Parker Lewis'. #DatedReferences

Second full trailer is out now.

Having just finished working my way through the second season, I'm inclined to agree. It starts to come together a bit more towards the end, but the big reveal was nowhere near as strong as S1's.

Hello, good evening and welcome @neurovibe

Yeah, making sense of Joy's character arc and motivations was next to impossible. She was...

I can sympathise with the student who had his grade lowered, but there's no version of the train scenario where the arrested man is the victim or the good guy.

That's an interesting point. I agree, it would be quite the double standard for someone from, say, Saudi Arabia to criticise France's efforts to ban the burkini without first considering whether such a garment would even be allowed on their own beaches. By the same token, there are a lot of people from Western nations who only purport to show an interest in women's rights when it can be used as an aid to political point scoring.

Well, Ellis says David Moyes' job is secure even if we're relegated in May. No mention of what'll happen if we're relegated in April.

I never could wrap my head around that whole “they wouldn't let us do it over there, so why should we let them do it over here” argument. Surely, the approach of certain Muslim-controlled states to modernisation and social tolerance is an example of what not to do, much less the one Western nations should be following.

It feels to me like we're in danger of swinging the PC pendulum too far the other way, if we haven't already. Everybody wants their turn on the soapbox, which is fine, but fewer and fewer people seem interested in actually discussing things. When questioning someone's opinion or pointing out a fact is considered an act of passive aggression, it's not an alternative to the perceived oppression we had before, it's just flipping the piety on its head and going "you can’t say that" about a whole new set of things.

I know we experienced a few issues with embedding images last month, but I was under the impression that it had been resolved. Are you still having difficulties?

Having made it through to the end, I'm inclined to agree with the critics suggesting that the fight choreography seemed oddly pedestrian. Not sure if the fault lies with Finn Jones or the producers, but to serve a character purporting to be such a deadly martial artist, it probably needed to be on the same level as something like The Raid, which it was really nowhere near. Another problem was that it was often guilty of telling and not showing. A lot of potentially interesting stuff (like K'un Lun, for example) is referenced only by Danny talking about it. Overall though, I was entertained by it. Had it been a little more evenly paced with a more significant element of social commentary (I get the feeling this will be covered in more depth when Rand and Cage meet each other in Defenders), it perhaps would have been up there with Daredevil and Jessica Jones.